


A Perilous Engagement

by bygosscarmine



Category: HEYER Georgette - Works, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Alternate Universe - Wife or Knife, Crossdressing, Duelling, Epistolary, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fencing, Inspired by Georgette Heyer, Philosophical Debate As Flirting, Philosophy, Regency Romance, The Berkshire Lady's Garland, Theology, wife or knife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygosscarmine/pseuds/bygosscarmine
Summary: Two young men come to a small country town, and Gabrielle isn't introduced to either of them--which does not prevent her from falling for the quiet young man destined for the church.Which is why she's going to have to do something desperate to get that introduction.Inspired by @agreyeyedgirl on Twitter recounting the "Wife or Knife" ballad here: https://twitter.com/agreyeyedgirl/status/1079100729724424192
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller
Comments: 18
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

The ball may have been the event of the season in the country town of Middleton, but it was hardly high society. This should have set Elias Carrick at ease. Considering that he wasn’t really meant to be in Middleton, and his friend Napoleon was so determined he should go, the general effect was a more subtle form of disquiet.

Napoleon was not the actual inmate of Elba Island, but a friend from Oxford given the moniker for reasons best left unsaid in polite society: more properly George Solo. His reassurances were to the tune of, “If you’re ever to make vicar from curate, you’ll need connections. And to make connections you need polish. The first step to polish is to at least have attended a party once.” Not reassuring, and putting rather a lot of weight on a single performance.

Solo had been in the neighborhood of Middleton kicking his heels at his uncle’s home for several weeks. Finding that Carrick would pass through the country on his way to the parish in the North, he had invited him to stop for a short holiday. Carrick had surprised even himself by accepting. The amusements had been tame enough so far, but he could not shake the sense he might end up regretting this whim deeply. He had regretted every other caper the dashing but devious-minded Solo had drawn him into, back in the day.

He stood feeling rather like a lamp-post at the edge of a London bustle, stock-still and being bumped into as if practically invisible. There were silks and muslins fluttering about, and smart jackets darting between them, all turning eager faces towards each other with smiles in their eyes. The chandelier light filled the room with a slight haze of smoke, and the heat of so many people all crowded together made him feel a little out of sorts. He had attended a middle-aged woman to a seat, and had been quite happy to allow her to gossip away at him, but had been supplanted by a matron who thought she was rescuing him. Now he had to find some other way to be politely engaged in the party, and Solo was at his elbow to make sure he did.

“Solo! My boy,” said a figure of rather aged splendor, approaching. “And your friend, delightful!”

Solo made his introductions between Carrick and the Squire–his uncle was helping the Squire in some matters of business, and the man had generously included them all in his invitation. The dubious nature of inviting the man of business’s nephew and friend to a ball was probably just a highlight of the country life, but Carrick felt as though he shouldn’t have accepted.

“You know, there just aren’t enough handsome lads about in these parts to do the pretty, so it’s a famous thing to have a few visitors! Now, come, I must carry you off to please the young ladies.”

Understandably, he took Solo along first, and Carrick purposefully missed his look of beckoning, to remain shored up in the debris of the party’s tides. The Squire bore back down on him pitilessly, however, and ushered him along to stand up with a young woman of reddish blonde hair and a delicate face. Since Carrick was well over six foot, and built on the lines of yeoman, she seemed to be in some terror of him.

He said gently, “I am not sure I will get all the steps right,” since he knew that his preference for silence did not strike people as comforting. She glanced up at him nervously, but when he moved without too much clumsiness she seemed relieved, and even made some remarks to him as if taking pity.

Being a man of the cloth did seem to excite a certain tendency toward pity in women. At least he had found it so. She left his side at the end of the set without hesitation, but with a polite word of thanks, so she was not fleeing him, either.

He had hoped to disappear into the crowd again, but Solo bore down on him with a woman who he clearly had been dancing with himself, as they laughed together. She was dressed as a matron, but still young and lively, which suited Solo. In fact, she appeared to be a widow as well. Her dark eyes were gleaming as Solo said, “Elias Carrick, madame. Future vicar and current scrapegrace. Carrick, this is Mrs. Hettisham, the Squire’s daughter.”

“Pleased,” said Carrick, bowing.

“Keep her safe from that clumsy fellow in the eyesore coat by taking the next dance, all right?”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Carrick.

The woman was quite kind to Carrick, and far from nervous. He enjoyed the scant moments they had in each other’s company in the country dance that was raucous and so disorderly that when he forgot his steps it was quite unnoticeable.

“Ah, it is so nice to dance again,” said Mrs. Hettisham. “But I must retire or my mother’s friends will think me quite lost in dissipation.”

“Let me see you to a couch, ma'am,” said Carrick. He hoped to settle her and then give her company, since it would mean not having to meet yet another stranger. However, the Squire was busier about the room than his slow gait would have led one to expect. He was at Carrick’s elbow almost immediately, with another blushing young lady who had no partner.

As they entered their apartments at the inn after the evening, Carrick told his friend, “If you wished for me to go to this party to gain a little polish, I can’t see how it could have answered the purpose. I spent the whole evening scaring little girls.”

“Sometimes learning that you are the scariest thing in a room is just the thing to find the proper confidence. Mrs. Hettisham is a wonderful example. A woman who certainly knows her own worth well enough to command whatever situation she is in.”

“She is lovely.”

“You know, I don’t think she is?” said Solo, musingly. “But it makes no difference.”

* * *

Gabrielle Seymour was meant to be in mourning. In truth, she grieved, and was mourning the loss. She was impatient with the form of the thing, however, which seemed to force her to sit and think about how unhappy she was and how little she could do about it. She had “borrowed” some clothes from one of the maids to sneak down and at least listen to the music, but had been forced to take up a position in a corner just enough obscured from the ballroom to see the edges of the dance while also worrying someone would stumble onto her taking the wrong door for supper.

She was choosing her moment to sneak back away, and it was probably now. Her aunt was safely ensconced close to the door to the dining room where she could scrutinize her staff’s missteps closely in setting refreshments, and her uncle was now holding court in the card room where his status as host would not prevent him from losing a great deal of petty cash to his guests.

Just then, her elder cousin Lady Hettisham darted over as if to smooth her skirts out of the crush. “Have you seen them?” this dab of a woman in a charming half-mourning of watered silk asked in an undertone.

“I can’t see a thing from here, as you well know, Maria,” Gabrielle retorted.

“Oh, do keep an eye out,” the young widow said, and escaped to not bring attention that way.

Gabrielle could not hazard a guess what it was Maria wished her to see, since what she found immensely entertaining ranged from a truly terrible clash of jewelry to signs of an incipient tendré between ill-matched young people.

Gabrielle was just timing her dart across the hall, risking being glimpsed from the door, toward the servant stair when she saw the stranger Maria had wanted her to notice. A fair man of some height was leading Mrs. Pratt to a seat at the wall. Gabrielle knew from her own experience of coming into this neighborhood several years before that Mrs. Pratt looked even at first sight like an obnoxious woman and proved to be so in a very short time of acquaintance, but he was leaning down to hear her over the music with an intent expression. He not only helped her to her seat but sat beside her as a sacrificial lamb to her conversation, without the slightest appearance of humoring someone he wished to avoid. For a moment, Gabrielle sat riveted by the grave, square face of the young man at her uncle’s ball. Then she recollected that if she could see him so well, they also might see her, despite her drab dress. The odd pair had found the few chairs shoved beside this side of the fireplace, which she had relied on being unwanted as both hot and cramped. She fled as smoothly as possible from the area.

Maria was happily chattering as her maid undressed her when Gabrielle knocked and entered.

“Someone had a delightful time tonight,” Gabrielle said, keeping her voice light.

“I had never thought a Middleton ball might see a rake who knows just how to entertain a young widow,” said Maria with a chuckle. “It takes so very little to make me feel gratified this way!”

She cast a more piercing look at Gabrielle, however, and said, “You did not enjoy yourself, did you, coz?”

“My disguise made it quite impossible for me to do so,” Gabrielle said drily. “I had to hide in a corner and wish in vain to be brought a cool drink. I saw that large, fair man with Mrs. Pratt, but you would be put to the test to convince me he was a rake.”

"Oh no! _He_ danced by me with little Georgina, and looked as though he were trying to juggle eggs, he was so nervous and gentle. I believe he is destined for the church. Luckily, his friend is destined to be a man of business. I do not understand how they are friends.”

Gabrielle asked for more details on the flirtation, so she might not have to discuss more about her own evening, and soon bid her cousin goodnight. She spent some time in her own bed thinking, however. It made more sense that her cousin had been pointing to two strangers, particularly one who had flirted with her. 

It stung more than it ought to that there were young visitors in the village that she would probably never meet. She didn’t want a London season, or even to be asked to dance at the ball–she just hated to be hidden from the world as if it were shameful that she had lost both her parents. As if she was too young to be trusted to behave in company like a mourner.

If they didn’t treat her so much like a disobedient pup, she would have an easier time behaving.


	2. Chapter 2

Carrick had habits that better matched the country than Napoleon’s late-sleeping, so he’d had to find ways to occupy himself. He knew there would be a good amount of chatter in the stables about the previous evening’s event, since the men there were also most of the town’s coachmen, so he wandered that way after taking the news and some coffee. Despite his education and career prospects, the men there had apparently taken in his plain dress and determined him to be a good sort, and not above their touch. They did not let him do anything about the stables, but he knew the rules of domains.

When he entered the yard, he found a level of quiet and constrain that puzzled him, until he heard a young voice arguing with the stablemaster. He looked into the barn and found a young person with too-neat boots and a delicate face wheedling Millstone about taking a different saddle to ride.

“Absolutely not. Good morning, minister!” said Millstone, apparently happy to have a reason to drop the argument with the youth.

“Good morning. All your charges bright-eyed after their expeditions yesterday?”

“You’re a vicar?” interrupted the youth, dark eyes regarding him with open surprise.

“I am soon to take up a post in the church, as a curate,” he responded politely.

“Then, sir, you can tell us. Is it very wicked of me to borrow my cousin’s saddle that is more comfortable to ride, when he is sure to not need it? He has not specifically forbade me to use it, and he has let me ride his mare before. And I would be on my own horse, just borrowing the saddle.”

Carrick had not expected to be interrogated on finer points of ethics by young people first thing in the morning, but he knew how burning such questions could be. He suspected that Millstone was wishing to prevent an argument, too, but it was sometimes better to let youth have their spats out.

“I cannot see that it would be wicked, though of course you should let your cousin know that you have borrowed it.”

The youth shot a gleaming look of triumph to Millstone, who looked uneasy.

“There! I will just do my own tack, Millstone, and you don’t have to take any blame for it. You can say the vicar persuaded you not to meddle.”

“You and I both should pray that there will be no asking,” Millstone said severely.

The young man chuckled, and darted away after heaving up the said saddle in small hands. His height seemed to mismatch his apparent age, for his light voice was far from mature.

“I don’t recognize that young person,” said Carrick. “Too young for the party?”

“From up the house,” Millstone said. “Cousin of the family.”

His tone did not encourage further questions, and so Carrick instead asked after the colt currently being trained. Soon some of the inn’s men came in to ready horses for a travelling carriage, so Carrick was able to subside into watching them at work, and listening to their exchanges of gossip between advisements on how to better accomplish tacks and disparagements on the preservation of different parts of equipment.

Carrick had stayed to attend the party, and had planned to go on with the stage in a few days, but had sent a letter ahead of himself to check in with his future hosts. A reply came that afternoon to unsettle everything. The vicar he was to assist had suddenly succumbed to an illness, wrote the Earl who oversaw the parish, and that post was to be filled urgently by another. This man, not being acquainted with Carrick and suddenly thrust into a new position, could not be expected to welcome a dependent stranger at such a time. At a loss, Carrick accepted Solo’s instant extension of further hospitality, at least until he could arrange to resume residence in London or Oxford. He had no family home to return to, and would have to return to occupation in tutoring or working at a charity school to make ends meet until he found another opportunity. The bitter taste of failure kept him awake that night.

News of his difficulties somehow reached the vicar of Middleton within the day, for he came to visit Carrick the very next morning.

“I cannot offer you a position, alas,” said the vicar after some pleasant nothings, and turning down any refreshment. “My parish is small enough that for the most part there is only enough employment for me and my excellent wife. However, while you make your enquiries, I do have a proposal. The ball, you may know, was held to celebrate the coming wedding of the Squire’s son. This wedding will be quite a grand thing, and though my own ceremony is but a small part of it, I think the Squire would not be displeased to allow me an extra pair of hands during a time when there is certainly an increase of my duties. The wedding will be in two weeks, and certainly you cannot be wanted elsewhere on such short notice?”

Carrick was pleased to accept. Without occupation, his time with Solo and his uncle had begun to pall, but to not be forced to pack up while uncertain of his future address was certainly enough to make the situation very different.

“When shall I come to join you?”

“Are you able to rise for country hours?” the vicar asked with a slight smile.

“Contrary to my appearances in connection with my friend,” said Carrick, “I am far from being a fashionable gentleman.”

“You seem eager enough to get to work that I cannot doubt it. Then you might come tomorrow at 8 o'clock.”

Solo greeted his friend’s decision on extending his stay with pleasure, and his disclosure that he was going to be assisting the vicar with a certain ironic enjoyment.

“And here I was trying to raise your expectations among the young ladies of Middleton!” he said.

“Be pleased to enjoy your own friendliness with the Widow Hettisham and leave me out of such things,” said Carrick, but in good humor.

Carrick and Solo had been friends more by circumstance than inclination—living in the same college surrounded by boys who had prospects in government if not titles, they had been often the only youths begging off from high-stakes gaming and expensive types of carousing. This had been puzzling in Solo’s case. It had taken Carrick some time to realize that Solo was also escaping, not just following to persecute him. The fact that Solo zealously scrimped his pocket money to always be dressed in slightly inappropriate splendour had thrown him (as well as the other boys) off the scent.

Solo himself was merely delaying his doom as a barrister on his inevitable return to London by helping his uncle to settle affairs with the Squire. The nuptials of the son were one part of this–another was the untangling of his late son-in-law’s estate. Hettisham had been a gentleman with a manor house in the next town and some property. He had married late and though by all accounts the Squire’s daughter had been fond of her husband, he had left no issue. Mrs. Hettisham now lived in his house with the company of a female cousin, but the entail of his estates versus the bequeathments to his widow required some careful thought in being executed. The heir of the property was not eager to evict a young widow, though her own father’s house was close by and might be expected to receive her. He had his own home and family. Though some of the financial duties and incomes had been immediately put in his way, there were other matters to be dealt with that could be resolved over time without serious inconvenience. That the Squire had decided to have them dealt with at a rather inconvenient time was not mentioned by anyone, but apparent to all but him.

Solo’s uncle was happy to leave the explanations to the young Mrs. Hettisham of decisions being pondered and provisions being made to his well-mannered nephew, who was never averse to finding pleasures in his duties, but also too calculating to not fulfil them. The Squire, who might otherwise have thought his daughter’s frequent happy interactions with a man of business (or really just the expectant nephew of one) to be unbecoming, was rather relieved she had something to occupy her mind. He could not think it was comfortable for her to be always in a house full of wedding plans.

It also did not cross his mind to wonder whether young Gabrielle Teller’s state of mind was affected in any way by the neighborhood’s additions. While she was grieving a parent, of course the festival mood would be repugnant to her, and he looked no further for a cause of her somberness.

Gabrielle was happy to not be part of the frantic planning and work that went into a large family wedding–any of the tasks that would have been settled on a cousin of dubious standing would have been tedious, and she was not a woman who bore well with tedium.

Grieving was also tedious.


	3. Chapter 3

Gabrielle missed her father. The high, slicing pain of missing him colored every moment, and the fact that under it ran the older wound of losing her mother made it almost unbearable when she was alone and unoccupied. And her kind cousins left her far too unoccupied.

If her father had still been with her, he would have understood. When Mama had died, and with her the small brother Gabrielle had been so delighted to meet, they had both bided their time of being homebound angrily–often ugly towards each other in their pain. As soon as some of the restrictions of society were lifted, however, they had gone to France. They said they were connecting with her Mama’s family in their bereavement, to their placid English friends, but the truth was the whole journey was a way to stay always moving, never resting. If not seeing entertainment then being entertained in trying to make their way through a country they did not know. Trying to buy supplies in strange shops, watching the strange doings of people in the streets around them.

Maria knew pain, to some extent, and also the need to be busy in bereavement. But the stories she related of her loss told Gabrielle that at first it had been easy for Maria to sit still, her shock making her quite numb and compliant. She had chafed some toward the end of her constraint, before being able to set aside some of the restrictions at the end of six months. Out of official mourning now, she had recovered her spirits in being able to dance a little, and flirt judiciously. She did not quite understand how different a thing it was to lose a second parent within five years of the first–or to be left with quite nobody in the world who was truly concerned about one’s welfare. Maria still had her parents, as busy as they might be. Gabrielle had only cousins who did not say so but considered her a bit fast merely because her mother had been born French, and her father had taken her abroad for over a year.

She was allowed to ride, which saved her from lunacy, and also to read novels which saved her from being trapped in her own circumstances. At times, though, the desire to be shoved off a cliff into icy waters at least for a change was greater than her relief to not be in such straits.

She tried writing her own novel, but found it took far too much concentration to be kind occupation for a spirit much wounded. Perhaps, however, this retreat into fiction was to blame for her actions.

“Darling, do you care much what you wear for the wedding?” Maria asked her carelessly one morning. “I do believe we can get a lovely gray I saw in Sudbury made up, and it will be suitable. Mum does not think you will wish to dress up, but I rather suspect otherwise.”

“I do not have enough allowance for a new half-mourning dress,” said Gabrielle, “even if I have the desire.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Maria. “My wedding tasks have mainly included welcoming a great many of my least favorite relatives to my home and figuring out how to best entertain them while myself attending events from which they know they are excluded. I would be very pleased to have at least one pleasant task, even at my own expense. Also, it will be my gift to you for overseeing all the breakfasts and nuncheons that I cannot be present for because my to-be-sister is so eager to show she loves me despite our quarrels every day of our lives together before now.”

“Then yes, I will allow you to make me a handsome present of a grey dress,” said Gabrielle, consideringly. “I will inspect my wardrobes for things we might have refitted into it. I think I have some grey pearl buttons that would do very nicely against a darker dove color.”

Maria, otherwise a fairly perceptive woman, did not think beyond the pleasure in a new dress for a girl who had very little else to enjoy. It was not until Gabrielle also brought a lovely riding cape and requested it to be dyed by the seamstress to the same approximate shade as the ribbons for her wedding costume that Maria began to wonder if there was some other interest involved. The various responsibilities of the eldest daughter of a house soon to receive its heir’s wife drove it from her mind, however.

Gabrielle had, in fact, formed an interest. It was one she strived to keep from even its object, but inexorably made its effects known. The riding coat was her most reckless allowance of its influence, though she planned for it never to be seen by her object. But of course…there was a chance.

It had not quite started at the party she was not supposed to be at, because she had hardly seen anything of the party. But Maria’s description of that sober young man dancing as if he were afraid had intrigued her. He hadn’t looked like the sort of man to fear anything. Though they had not been introduced at all, she had been at events where he was present with the vicar. He acted as a sort of de facto curate while they had guests, and since she was not in company but often showing guests the way to different rooms, she saw him in glimpses across the room. She couldn’t say what it was–perhaps it was the contrast between his sober face and his gentle voice. Or his large frame and the caution in his manner. She was intrigued by him.

And if that were all of their acquaintance, things might have gone quite differently.

When Elias Carrick strolled in on her cajoling Millstone, she had panicked momentarily. Her glib entreaty for him to speak on the propriety of her borrowing her cousin’s saddle was a pure defense mechanism. But when he answered seriously, albeit with some amusement at being asked, she had realized he didn’t know who she was. And the scandalized Millstone wasn’t about to tell him. When she returned the next morning, both cautious and hopeful, she learned that while he often spent time loitering about the stables that morning he had left the place early, with a business-like manner.

“You’ll have me up before the magistrate,” Millstone growled urgently, so his underlings couldn’t hear. He knew who she was, but had kept it to himself so far. “And look at you limping! It’s not proper and it’s hurting you.”

Gabrielle couldn’t well explain why, though a decidedly skillful horsewoman in a lady’s saddle, she had tasked herself with learning to ride like a man. Like her young man’s garb, it was the sort of risky venture that allowed her to keep her sanity during the other hours of the day being boxed in by mourning protocols and dubious relatives.

She felt guilty about risking Millstone’s neck with hers, but it wasn’t her fault he was too observant for his own good. She’d thought her disguise fairly good. Despite the stiffness of her lower limbs, she put Jerry’s saddle on her mare, and clambered up to take another ride. Holly the mare had been as uneasy with the process as Gabrielle, and today had her ears back about being tasked with this oddly distributed burden again. But she went forward with less hesitation, and so did Gabrielle.

She was just cresting the hill to look back on the village, and thinking of whether to go further or turn back, when she saw a figure in black crossing the field. After a moment she could tell it was the young visiting parson. This decided her.


	4. Chapter 4

Carrick had left the parish house to do an errand in the village so the vicar and his wife could visit with some elderly neighbors. It wasn't exactly parochial work, but it felt like lifting the other man's burden a little, and so he was content with it, for the moment. He was still finding his way around from the parish, and he'd gotten a bit turned around, when he had an unlikely rescuer.

"Parson!" called the youth of the illicit saddle, riding up on what looked like that same object. He slid off in a peculiar way that made Carrick wonder if he'd overtired himself, but the lad grinned without any sign of heat or fatigue. "What are you doing out here?"

"I'm headed to the chandler's. Are you still testing your cousin's tack?"

"It takes more than one ride to see if the equipment's really superior. Millstone seemed a bit lost without you this morning. You don't have a horse of your own?"

"No, no. Beyond my touch at the moment."

"I believe being poor is rather admired in church circles," the lad said.

Carrick raised a brow at this witticism, but responded with, "I recall we haven't been introduced. I’m Carrick."

"Oh--Hettisham."

"Cousin by marriage then?"

The young man looked a bit surprised by this remark, but acknowledged it was so. He seemed to be set on walking alongside, leading his horse, though he appeared to have done something injurious to his gait.

"What led you to be in the church? Your friend is a barrister, which seems a better way to rise in the world. Are you quite devoted?"

This was an impertinent question, but Carrick thought it a good exercise to answer.

"Certainly, I am devoted to the church. I would not have chosen the occupation if I did not have an interest."

"I believe my late father considered pursuing ordination. He had a lot of books of theology and philosophy, and an Oxford degree. He married up, instead."

This startling bit of information made Carrick ask, with rather less guard than he usually had, "Did he ever regret that, do you think? Or pursue theology in his own way?"

"I would say he pursued it, yes. He often would discuss the difference between societal mores and spiritual laws. He thought that was very important. In fact, it may have rather been having to abide so much by society's laws to be considered a good clergyman that stopped him. He made a rather better head of household, both compassionate and firm. He and my mother were well-matched, in case it sounds to you like he was avaricious."

"He sounds like a good man, as we all should aim to be."

Young Hettisham looked at him sidelong.

"Do you disagree?" Carrick asked.

"I think it's a very broad aim, to merely be good. What does good mean? Does it mean falling in with expectations, until you have a chance to be martyred? Does it mean behaving so other people are never made uncomfortable? Every moment you don't choose between being good and being bad. You choose between how you feel you ought to act and what else you might choose instead. Sometimes the definition of being good, according to many people, looks a little too much like doing what puts them at ease. But a parson has to know there are times to rebuke, and times to be gentle to sinners. Is that not so?"

Carrick did not gape, but it took some effort. He raised his estimation of Hettisham's age, as well: sometimes men had light voices.

"It seems you have thought about these things much like your father did."

"I miss talking to him."

Hettisham's voice was wistful.

"I can understand that." After a pause, which the young man didn't fill, Carrick asked, "Not much of a philosophical crowd up at the Squire's place, I take it?"

"No, sir," said Hettisham, grin returning. "Definitely in the line of making etiquette a religion."

Without even realizing, Carrick was pleasantly escorted to the chandler's (the need to double back in a lane soon after they left the meadow not remarked upon by either) while talking of the subtleties of morality opposed to convention. He felt sorry for the boy, and briefly wondered why the vicar here had not conversed with Hettisham. Perhaps his own more approachable age made it easier for Hettisham to address him with such inquiries.

* * *

It was quite fatal. She had ridden down toward the young man in his sober black, striding with ease, face brightened by purpose. And he was only about a rather shabby errand for the parson. This level of zeal was incomprehensible. But then, so was falling easily into a philosophical debate with someone he clearly viewed as a young troublemaker.

It would be so much easier to avoid the sin of duplicity and rebelliousness if she weren't rewarded by being treated as a full-fledged human being when in the act of that twin deviance. She longed to go out and hope to happen on him again, but two days in a row to be left alone at Maria's while her cousin breakfasted with the young couple was as much fortune as she was allowed.

Worse, the third day she had to go to breakfast at the Squire's house. Carrick had come up with his friend on a business call, while she was enmeshed in the tedium of beading minor bits of bridal frippery with almost all the female relations in the county. Maria had tripped down to speak with Mr. Solo, and suddenly Gabrielle hated the way her cousin pranced about, as if all was right with the world. Her fingers were sore from pushing the needle, and the beads unevenly formed, so the work was already hateful. When the sound of the door below was heard, she stood up as if to stretch, and went to the window.

And in a flash, understood herself. She had before considered it being intrigued by a stranger, because so few intriguing things were about Middleton, and fewer still in the guise of young men. The truth, however, was revealed in the way her eyes fixed themselves on the shape of Mr. Carrick's back, and the negligence with which she could not have said if Mr. Solo's coat was blue or burgundy. Solo had intrigue to some, but intrigue was not what she felt for his friend.

And the man would leave in the next week. Everyone had circulated by now the sad tale of his disappointment, and the kindness of the parson. And there wasn't a single thing she could reasonably do about it.

The next day it was raining, so the picnic planned for the day was cancelled as far as Maria and Gabrielle's involvement went. Gabrielle had her coffee early, told her maid she wished to be left alone to sleep some more after the previous night's festivities, and snuck out her window.

Millstone, however, absolutely refused to let her take Jerry's saddle in this weather. He threatened to also refuse to let her ride. She cooled her heels until a stage came through, and busied the men more than usual because of the encumbrance of its wheels with mud, and also its horses' hooves. She hurried to get Holly tacked up, and slipped away successfully.

The sky had cleared mostly, and so she picked through the lanes with Holly in good cheer. It was unlikely she would meet with her object of interest, but she tried to ignore this. At least the air was sweet. Hope kept her going past the parsonage, and up into the hills beyond, so she could loiter back down. The second downpour of the day caught her a mile out from the village, and with Millstone's dire warnings about laming her mare in her ears, she hunched her shoulders in her coat, and gritted her teeth to keep a steady pace back toward the stable.

* * *

He'd thought the day was clear enough to go for his dinner at the inn, to not strain the hospitality of his friends in the parsonage too far, but was caught in a burst of rain just as he got into the field that led more directly toward the village. He made the lane, just as the shower grew heavier. "Hi, parson!" came a familiar voice from behind. The lad Hettisham came up alongside him and again dismounted both legs at once, splashing down into a puddle.

"Here, take Holly! You musn't catch chill today, before the wedding. You've got a big role to play."

"What about you?" Carrick asked.

"I'm already as wet as I'm going to be," was the wry response. "May as well save one of us. Just don't lame her or Millstone will have my skin!"

"You're a good lad," said Carrick. He patted the horse's neck, and mounted while the boy held her reins. Hettisham handed them over with a bright smile, one of the oddly open expressions that made him think the boy younger than he was. 

"Get home and into something dry as quick as you can yourself," Carrick said.

"I’ll do my poor best," said Hettisham, and waved as he moved down the lane on the horse. "Goodbye!" he called a moment later, then darted across the field, not toward the center of the village at all.

* * *

The day of the wedding turned out to be a day of more rain, which might have threatened to spoil a less well-ordered programme. As it was, the morning’s cavalcade to the church was a bit splashed in dirt, but they had the foresight to have prepared timbers and flagstones to make walkways over the mud from the carriages to the door.

When the young newlyweds were ushered into the conveyance to their new home, though, the sun came out to shine upon them, and all was loveliness and hope.

It is unsurprising that when she arrived at her own home, Maria Hettisham was scarcely in her own parlor before she gave way to a storm of tears. It was only when she had run through most of them that she had a chance to notice that Gabrielle's tears, while also understandable, were in no way abating. In fact, the wracking sobs she was expressing now were quite frightening. Alarmed, Maria dashed her own grief aside like so many loose tears to ask, "Darling, what is the matter? Are you all right?"


	5. Chapter 5

If Gabrielle tried to answer, it merely made the note of her cries more anguished. Maria ran to her bedchamber and fetched down smelling salts, which she thrust under Gabrielle’s nose. Forced to gasp, her weeping was interrupted by the assault on her nostrils.

“You are worrying me,” Maria said in a chiding tone, knowing that when someone got so overwrought it was no use to be sympathetic.

It was much better to divert their attention. “Whatever can you be crying over so? Surely a wedding is not something to make _you_ so very full of grief.”

For a moment she feared speaking the question would restart Gabrielle’s tears, but instead the girl seemed to get angry.

“No, of course I have no cause for grief. I am trapped in a country village with no prospects and an inheritance I can only enjoy once I’m married, and an uncle who would never recommend me to marry anyone. Why would a wedding make me at all grieved?”

Maria had her failings, but her perceptiveness about people was keen. Gabrielle could not possibly be so upset she was hysterical about her dim marital future unless…

“Darling, is there a man you like? Is it–” she hesitated with some foreboding. “Is it Mr. Solo?”

Gabrielle’s laugh at that was a little bitter, but Maria was relieved. “No, I don’t care for Mr. Solo. Goodness, if I did he might be persuadable, and your father might even think it a good match. No, I do not intend to poach him.”

“I am not attached to Mr. Solo in any way,” said Maria with dignity. Then, with a bit of a cunning tone to her voice, “So who is it who is unpersuadable? I shouldn’t think you’d have seen his friend above three times, and never to speak to.”

Gabrielle’s hesitation told her enough.

“Oh, you wicked child! Have you been sneaking out to talk with him? Please say I have not failed so greatly as a chaperone.”

“Would it be so desperate a case if I had been spending time with him?” Gabrielle retorted, quickly this time. “And do you really think he would be so improper as to spend time with a young woman unchaperoned?”

Maria looked at her blankly. There was clearly something else, but…

“You have been sneaking out,” she reflected, “I could swear to that. But no one has seen you, so you must have been disguised. And no, I don’t think the starched Carrick would have spent time even with a servant girl alone, he is too nice for that.” Then she gasped, “Gabrielle! Jerry’s old trunk!”

The girl turned her face away, but this was practically an admission.

“You have been meeting, but he thinks you are a young man?”

“A boy,” she admitted. “He called me lad.”

Maria flung her hands up in despair.

“Well, your secret is safe with me, or else I’ll be removed to my father’s house to live with my new sister-in-law. But you should not have!”

“I know,” said Gabrielle grimly. “It was an accident. At first.”

Maria softened. “And now your heart is broken. Poor thing.”

There was silence a moment.

Gabrielle bathed her eyes with a cool damp cloth that one of the maids had brought in. Maria had ordered her provisions for weeping as she’d come in through the door, voice wobbling but not yet overcome. She did feel a little better for crying.

“You know,” said Maria slowly, “I can’t see Father objecting to your Mr. Carrick. So the only thing that is left is to see if he is persuadable.”

“Maria, he leaves in just a few days, and he thinks I am a boy!”

“Well, then all we have to do is prove you are not one.”

“And then he shall think well of me,” Gabrielle commented.

“You know,” Maria reflected, “I have found that while society cares very much about propriety, and men care about how society sees them, the finer details of propriety don’t always matter to them the same when it comes to a pretty girl.”

Gabrielle snorted. “This is a hopeful minister we are talking about. He is quite serious about it, and I cannot see him marrying anyone he thought unfit for his parsonage.”

“But things are a little in doubt about him having a parsonage, are they not? And we do not need him to become engaged to you, merely to stay long enough to become attached to you.”

Gabrielle was astonished.

“Maria, why would you help me? This is a consequence of my bad behavior.”

“I have never heard you cry like that before, and my conscience is stricken. I think even your minister will understand, once you can explain. That is, about your dressing…in cognito. One must not tell a gentleman too soon about forming a tendre. Now, we do not have much time, so we shall have to be bold….”

Gabrielle was dubious, but ready to hear a solution.

Though wedding festivities were at an end, some of the guests had yet to leave the neighborhood, so on Monday there was a much quieter cards-and-dinner party. Maria had inveigled her mother to invite the young men staying with her father’s man of business as a way to break up the somewhat stiff family party. Her mother was harassed deeply with trying to obtain enough eggs to continue to feed her guests when the local hens were being contrary, but had agreed absently so Maria had sent round cards. She had also sent a rather more informal note to her friend there.

He came briefly for a visit at her summons, though he entered looking apprehensive. She laughed. “Oh dear, Mr. Solo. You seem alarmed by my sending for you!”

“Before now you have seemed contented to wait upon chance meetings. I could not help worrying something was troubling you,” he said, relieved that clearly whatever he had been summoned for was not some awkward declaration.

“Isn’t it such a strange coincidence that I was always at my father’s house at around the same time you were to come and discuss with the provisions of my late husband’s will?” she teased. “Perhaps you were right to worry, for I am in a bit of a snarl. See, I have a bit of a wager on with a friend. Oh, you will be a gentleman about this, won’t you?”

“Are you questioning my honor?” Solo said, mock-angry.

“Just, it seems sometimes men do not take the confidences of ladies quite as seriously as they do other gentlemen’s.”

“Then they are dogs, ma'am. While I may be a flirt and even the son of a tradesman, I am no dog.”

Thus reassured, Maria carried on with her somewhat falsified account, and ended in the question, “So is Mr. Carrick unattached? And remember, this is a matter of hair-splitting as any lawyer must be familiar with, since it involves money. He must be completely unattached, not just a matter of an engagement or a tacit understanding.”

“Carrick would be mortified if he knew I was answering so,” said Solo, grinning, “but the man is like the driven snow when it comes to women, and hasn’t shown any inclination toward a lady since we were fresh out of Oxford. And that attachment is long over, since the lady in question turned out to be a little vulgar and is now married. You can collect your money with impunity.”

“It is a matter of pride, not money,” said Maria loftily. “But do, do keep this a secret.”

“It should be easy to do so, since I will be leaving the neighborhood in a week.”

If this was a bid for some sort of fond reply, Solo’s shot went wide of the mark.

“What a relief that will be to you!” As if in afterthought, she added, “We will miss having the fresh faces about the place.”

Solo soon took his leave, and thought very little more about the questions she had asked, and a little more than he liked about her casual dismissal of his absence.  
  


* * *

Carrick was annoyed that he was going to a party the night before his departure, but Solo told him it was necessary to make his proper thanks and farewells to the Squire’s family.

“Besides you’ve had your things mostly packed for days now. What else would you do but mope about all night?”

It was as tame of an affair as promised, so it was not even ten o’clock when they rose to leave. Lady Hettisham also rose, declaring fatigue, and offered them a place in her carriage home, since she would pass through the village. The walk was pleasant by day but happily disposed of by night, so they agreed.

At the door of the carriage, Lady Hettisham exclaimed with frustration, “Oh, my wandering wits! Mr. Solo, help me back to the door, I quite forgot my shawl. No, Mr. Carrick, get in and wait on us.”

He did so, not particularly convinced of her urgency for a shawl but imagining some private comment between her and Solo was wanted.

Carrick had vaguely noted that the carriage was occupied by another figure but not been alarmed by this, until this person rapped hard on the door so the wheels began to move.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hold, this is Lady Hertisham’s carriage,” he exclaimed.

“You are mistaken,” said a low young voice. “It was always my carriage.”

“Beg your pardon,” he said, “just let me down.”

“You again are mistaken. I have purposefully taken you up tonight. And I will not let the coachman stop until I am satisfied.

In fact, he has orders that unless he hears me particularly order him otherwise, we are to continue to a place quite remote.”

The feminine notes of the voice bore in on him all the significance of this statement.

“If I have in some way offended you,” he quickly said, “just let me know what recompense I can make to you.”

“Good, it is settled. You will come to the address upon the card I will place in your hand now at seven o’clock in the morning. You will satisfy me in a duel for the wounds I have borne from you.”

Stupefied, Carrick could only receive the card from the gloved hand he could not see in the dimness, and clutch it.

The figure—well-cloaked, he realized, as she leaned into a spot of moonlight in opening the shutter to address the driver: “We will stop in the village.”

She closed the shutter again, then said in a softer voice, “If by morning it seems unnecessary to answer my challenge, I warn you that I will have witnesses to put a very different light on your ride with me.“

"Are you going to blackmail me?” he asked, growing slightly more angry than bewildered.

There was a pause. “Now you put it that way, perhaps I won’t do quite that. I don’t wish to be unsporting. You do understand, however, that all depends on you coming in the morning?”

“Yes,” he said, despite himself.

It seemed a very long time before the carriage rolled to a stop.

“You may get down. I will see you early tomorrow,” said the young woman with a nearly cheerful tone.

What was there to do but obey?

Despite the slivers of moonlight intersecting the buildings of the village along the street, he could see nothing of the coachman or the other passenger as they rolled away.

It was then that he realized he had been set down in the village west along the road from the manor, not east, where he was staying with Solo.

He knocked up a scandalized tavern owner who begrudgingly gave him the only bed they had for strangers, and asked to be woken well before dawn. The man, getting the sense that his crisis of arrival was part of some greater tragedy, allowed that his missus would be up for the baking early and could do this.

He was just dressed and descending grimly to the taproom the next morning to see if he could get a horse or transport somehow when a rattle of wheels crossed the yard and a voice he recognized with relief called in, “Is there a fellow here called Carrick?”

“Solo,” answered Carrick, “I’ve never been so happy to see someone.”

“Don’t be pleased yet,” said Solo darkly. “Just come and let’s be on the road.”

“I need to get to a place called Redding Cross,” said Carrick.

“Yes, exactly,” said Solo.

As Carrick followed him swiftly to the waiting vehicle, Solo said, “Those women have us twisted up into quite a fix.“

"Women? How do you know anything about this, anyway? What happened last night after Mrs. Hettisham got out of the carriage?”

Solo waved for him to be quiet, until they were on the road and the rattle of the wheels covered their voices.

“Of course she was part of the plot,” Solo said then. “She held me back, and I wouldn’t have thought it of such a small woman, but she held hard. She said, ‘Let him go, it is to his benefit.’ I asked what it was about and she said her cousin had wanted to meet you for some time. She said she would take me home in another coach, and I wanted to refuse, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more if I didn’t go with her.”

“And? What more do you know?”

“Just that you were either to go marry across the border or duel at dawn. I asked about her cousin, but she said nothing except that her cousin was determined to stop you from leaving town before meeting you officially.”

“You must be joking.”

“If there is a joke, it is on us, and it is still being told,” said Solo. “Anyhow, the carriage ride is not far to the village, and I didn’t like to try to lengthen it. When you weren’t at the house, I knew I had to come for you in the morning.”

“Whatever happens, I am in your debt merely for having the foresight to wake so early and do so,” said Carrick. “I don’t know what to think of all this but you eased my mind about at least one thing.”

After a while of silence, Solo said, “I am trying to recall this cousin. Surely she must have been somewhere about all this time?”

“I don’t know. The only cousin I met was a young lad.”

“The thing is, Mar–Mrs. Hettisham said it was for your benefit. Could it be the cousin who is a ward of the Squire? I have no clear memory of being introduced, but I do know…”

He hesitated.

“What do you know?” Carrick demanded.

“Well. That when she inherits she will have more money than Mrs. Hettisham. More than the Squire’s heir will get, too. If I reason it out correctly, she is a sort of once-removed cousin. The property can be transferred to a husband not the closest male descendent, so it is held in trust for her, and the Squire’s family does not have any interest. The connection might not have been kept up if the property were not so close to theirs.”

“Perhaps in Redding Cross?” Carrick asked sourly.

“One might reasonably guess so.”

“If Mrs. Hettisham thinks I will marry a stranger for money, I am obliged to her,” said Carrick in chilly tones.

“Well, I might,” said Solo, “if it was between that or being shot.”

He grinned at Carrick, but his friend was not amused.

Redding Cross was marked by not much more than an inn and a butcher shop. The address on the card had said only “The Manor”, and asking about it led to a disbelieving look from the elderly wastrel seated before the inn, rheumatism-twisted finger jabbed toward the hill topped by trees with a road running into them.

The friends dutifully thanked him for his information and rattled up the road.

On coming to a graveled drive winding out of sight, they went through the open and unattended gate and drove onward. There was a manor house at the end of the drive, of neat and capacious aspect, though without the usual smoke or caretaking bustle one might expect of such a large house.

Carrick knocked on the door, and there was no response despite repeated attempts. Since the house overall had the look of a place shut up while its owners enjoyed life elsewhere, from the uniformly closed curtains and the lack of any noise from the stables, he began to feel this was the end of the joke.

“Is it locked?” Solo asked. “One would hate to be bobbled by a technicality.”

Carrick sighed, contemplated the door, then tried the handle. The door came open. Having gone so far, it did not take much more consideration to step inside.

“Hello?” Solo called, though Carrick really wished he hadn’t.

There was a swish from above, and after a few moments, a figure veiled in black came to stand at the head of a double-stair.

“What are you doing, breaking into my house?” came an imperious, wavering voice.

“Pardons, madame,” Carrick said swiftly. “We had been sent a rather urgent message…”

The figure swiftly swept down the stairs, and was followed by another figure who emerged from the shadow also peculiarly wearing a veil, in grey drab.

Solo stifled a snort, but Carrick was still confused until the first figure swept up her veil, and said, “No, you did well to come here, Mr. Carrick.”

The first thing he saw was large brown eyes with a piercing quality, attentive to him in a way that was disquieting. But then he realized he knew the face, despite its different setting: it was the lad Hettisham. But it could not be–

perhaps it could. The odd mismatch between voice and maturity. The heart-shaped face now framed by curls was so feminine he couldn’t understand how he had not seen it.

Then her mouth twisted into a crooked smile and he felt a surge of anger. This trickery was abominable–and he _had_ liked the boy he’d met in the fields.


	7. Chapter 7

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Someone who has had to stoop very low just to look you in the face as I truly am. Sir, you may inspect your weapon.”

The other woman (belatedly he realized this must be Mrs. Hettisham, if only from Solo’s attitude) held out a pair of fencing foils.

“I will not duel with a girl,” Carrick said.

“Then you will go to the border with me?”

“You cannot make me choose between the two.”

“But I do make you choose. You have engaged to save your reputation by coming here today. Now, you will give me satisfaction either by a promise of marriage, or by wagering on a fencing bout?”

“Wagering what?” Solo asked, ever mindful of the details.

“A mere favor. Not something so momentous as elopment. See, I do not ask you to duel me to the death or even to blood. The buttons stay on the foils, and if I win you promise me some small favor, and if you win, you leave free.”

Something was not quite right about what she said, but he took up the foils to inspect them. Certainly made for fencing lessons, not for death matches.

“I am an indifferent fencer,” he said.

“Shall it be pistols, then?” she said, slightly mocking. The familiar lilt of humor stung him again.

“There is nothing to force me to do this,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, I have fulfilled our bargain. And if you try to lie about me, I will be gone and you will look ridiculous. Several people here know the truth, and others may easily guess.”

He glanced at the young woman, but she was merely picking up her rapier.

“My father taught me to fence, but it is not thought a proper pursuit for young ladies. I have not been able to practice it in some time. Surely you are not really threatened by the chance that I win?”

“I am worried that by participating at all I am becoming party to your disgraceful behavior.” This was a fairly strong argument, he felt, once he’d said it.

She did not look at him, glancing over the sword in her hand. She said softly, “No one gave me a chance to be something else. Because my mother is French, because my father taught me fencing, because I haven’t been properly moored in England since my birth, since my parents had the wickedness to leave me an orphan before I was safely married…I was never going to be respectable. So what have I to lose? Either everything they think of me is confirmed, or I continue to suffocate alone in the country.”

“You were not introduced to us because you are in mourning,” said Solo. “Was that merely a pretext for excluding you?”

Carrick did not need his friend feeling for the creature.

“I was part of the family’s doings during the wedding. But no, I am supposed to be in mourning, so therefore why introduce me to anyone outside the family? It saves them from explaining.”

She seemed to divine the wavering in his mind, perhaps some sympathy showing on his face. “Is it so much to ask for you to duel with me, with our silly little swords, and our friends here to be sure we do not do any harm?”

Again, those eyes were on him. The way she had posed questions of propriety versus goodness made a dire logic now, and he felt as though his face burned with humiliation. She had been coaxing Millstone to let her use her cousin’s saddle rather than her own side-saddle, and he had helped persuade the man. Was he partly responsible for this wickedness?

“Fine. If it gives you some peace, I will duel you. To three points only, then you will let me go.”

“I accept those terms,” she said.

They took up positions in the large, darkened front hall of the manor house, Mrs. Hettisham swishing back toward a side table, and Solo going to the door to open it fully and let in more light.

When they started, it became immediately apparent that this young woman was the better fencer. She neatly turned back all his sallies and ended with a point when she crossed his strike, and tilted through to point at his throat. He could almost feel the button trembling next to his skin.

“First point to my lady,” said Solo, clearly amused.

Carrick would have to use full advantage of his larger frame and stronger arms to win. The next set of blows went his way, since the woman seemed surprised to find him changing tactics. She was not overcome by his use of his height–after all, she had practiced with her father and he doubted this man had been as small as she. But his harder strikes on her parries took her off-guard and her returning sallies wavered. It ended with him in a point, button to her left shoulder and as easily at her heart.

She seemed to take fuel from this loss, however. The next round lasted longer, with his harder blows not able to land as often, and her quick parries-to-strike not quite quick enough to unsettle him. The exchange moved them back and forth across the floor until Carrick, surprised by a flick toward his face in what was nearly a forfeiting offense, stumbled slightly and found his foil dashed aside, and her button pressed right to his sternum, where his heart clattered enough he thought the button must transmit its pulses.

“Second point to my lady, and you’ve lost, Carrick.”

Feeling foolish and more than a little irritated, Carrick bowed, and held his foil out so Mrs. Hettisham could put it back in its case.

“I owe you a favor, ma'am,” he said, trying to sound gracious.

“And I owe you an introduction,” she said. “Maria?”

Mrs. Hettisham finally put back her veil to say, “Mr. Carrick, this is my cousin Gabrielle Teller. And I know this has all been a great presumption from us, but–”

“Please, Maria, no more,” interrupted Miss Teller. “Sir, you have humored me beyond belief. I will release you from any further burden to do so.”

It occurred to Carrick now that what had struck him wrong about her little speech about him going free: it did not weigh in the impossibility of him ever forgetting not just her face, but the way she looked at him, and the lengths to which she had gone. The duel would not have happened had he not lost his temper over her hint he was craven–and his own sense of betrayal. He had wished to punish her. Fate had punctured that hubris well enough.

“I gave my word I would fulfil a favor for you,” he said, stiffly. “A small one, not momentous. So I will do it–and you don’t have to decide on it today. Solo can forward any instructions.”

“Then I would like for you to become engaged to me.”

* * *

Cousin Maria shot Gabrielle a look but kept her composure. This was not what they had discussed.

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Carrick. “A very little favor.”

It was quite hard to bear both seeing him flushed with embarrassment and the exercise of their fencing bouts, and then hear the acrid sarcasm from him. She had, no doubt, pushed him to his limit.

“I do not mean you must marry me. I would like for you to play the part, so when my mourning is over it will give me reason to go to London for the season.” Maria maintained her composure still, a paragon, though Gabrielle expected a torrent of imprecations once they were alone. “You will reply to me, when I write to you, though you need not be affectionate or write long. You will meet with me a few times in London, and then I will cry off. No one in your future parish need know about it. It will be, for me, a great favor while costing you very little.”

He looked down on her, dislike mingled with something she could not name. She had realized, almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, that by forcing this she would be destroying any chance they might be friends. And yet, she did not think he would refuse. Was it wrong of her to ask when he was too honorable to refuse?

“I see. I cannot promise to lie for you. I only promise to answer your letters, in whatever fashion seems best. If I am still in London when you go there, you may call on me. Beyond that, I will not act.”

Gabrielle forced a smile as if this were just what she wanted–a begrudging extension of their connection, founded on falsehoods.

“That will be quite enough. I release you for now.”

After just a slight pause, he turned and walked from the house with not another word. His friend, with a few more backward glances, followed suit.

“Oh, Gabrielle,” Maria sighed. “You said you were just going to ask him to write you letters! Then it would all have been a sort of joke. But now he must be party to some scheme like this?”

“Hush,” said Gabrielle, more harshly than she meant. “I have done this all badly from the beginning. What hope did I have?”


	8. Chapter 8

Carrick’s stage was long gone. As they rattled back to Middleton in a borrowed carriage, he soon had a bad head from lack of sleep and food as well as the bad springs. What was he to think about the day’s happenings? Threatened by scandal, he had avoided a laughable proposal of elopement only to be tricked into a duel. Then, having lost the duel, he had willingly submitted to the penalty though the girl had offered to let him go. 

Now he was to have formed some engagement, after no open meetings with her, and maintain a correspondence? He was angry, but he could not stop his mind from connecting the wistfulness of how “Hettisham” said she missed talking with her father, with the way she had asked for him to at least reply to her letters.

“What is that child thinking?” he muttered.

“The greater myster,” Solo replied, “is how she managed to fall in love with you so deeply when you never were introduced. Would that I were so lucky with an heiress half so comely!”

Carrick did not snarl at his friend but only by dint of ignoring his friend the rest of the way to Middleton.

Solo, diabolically correct as he sometimes was, had hit on the very worst part of it. The girl, curious about matters of philosophy and startlingly good with a blade as well as riding, was lovely.

How could he have not realized? He kept coming back to the thought that it was partly his fault for being so easily fooled. He wanted to be convinced that she was dangerously immodest or wicked, but instead he could only hear himself ask, “Not much of a philosophical crowd up at the Squire’s place, I take it?” And with a smile, her agreement: “Definitely in the line of making etiquette a religion.”

Solo, tactful where he was not merciful, sensed his confusion and did not try to start conversation. Not long after they regained the inn, and finally were able to eat, the innkeeper informed Carrick that a servant from the Big House had paid for his fare on the next day’s stage, since he had missed this morning’s. The man nobly resisted any comment on this absence or the early demand for a carriage by his friend.

Solo made a significant expression as the man left, which Carrick ignored. His friend left him to his ill-humor with a careless farewell, no doubt going to his uncle’s lodgings.

As he was waiting for the stage the next day, sitting upon his luggage, Solo sauntered up.

“Seeing me off? That’s unlike you,” Carrick said. This was perhaps too uncharitable, but Solo took it in his usual stride.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to show uncharacteristic fondness,” said Solo. “I come with a bit of fondness from someone else, brought to our lodgings early this morning from the Big House, as they call it.”

He pulled a letter from his breast pocket, and handed it over.

A mixture of dread and expectation filled Carrick as he took the letter. He did not open it, to Solo’s just perceptible disappointment, instead putting it in his own pocket.

“What do you think this was really meant to accomplish?” his friend asked.

“I will feel foolish if you force me to say it myself.”

“No, no,” waved away Solo. “Certainly the girl fell in love with you. But why the pageant? The threats and the duel?”

Carrick had been a bit confused by this as well, particularly before he realized how they had met before. Why not just break protocol and speak to him?

“We met by accident, and she was in disguise. Would it be easy for her to reveal what she’d done?”

Solo eyed him sidewise. "No. Definitely not. Without knowing the pranks we’d been up to together as students, you are the last man I’d think would understand such indelicacy.”

“That may be why. I am a man of the cloth, and not particularly approachable to strangers. And if she’d revealed it all by introducing herself to me, I’d have left with not a further thought about it. But by keeping me from getting on the stage, and asking for a correspondence…well, there was a chance I might be a gentleman and agree.”

Solo considered this.

“You know, I think that girl managed to figure you out in a matter of days when I still don’t understand you.”

Carrick did not know what to say to this, so instead he asked,

“Shall I send my address to your club in London once I’m settled?”

“Certainly,” said Solo, far too casually, “though I may not be looking you up as soon as I thought.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you’re not the only one with things to consider after the hijinks yesterday. My uncle won’t be leaving Middleton for another fortnight, and I will go with him in the coach back to London, I think.”

Carrick had thought less of Mrs. Hettisham for having part in these ridiculous escapades, as the woman who ought to have put a stop to the idea, not supported it. It figured Solo felt rather differently.

The stagecoach rattled in, and Solo sauntered away to avoid the dust and noise of the arrival with a jaunty wave to his friend.

Carrick opened his letter in the tavern where he took supper later that day, despite having a nosy matron right at his elbow at the table. He would spend the next ten hours in the coach being shaken around and unable to read, and patience was not his best virtue.

The letter was brief, and intriguingly brusque for a missive from a young woman who had threatened elopement to him less than two days before, now his alleged betrothed.

“Dear Mr. Carrick,” it read.

“I am sending this note so that you may remember you have promised to read and reply to my letters. It does not suit me to forward any further communications through your good friend Solo. Be so good as to reply to me with your new address as is convenient for you. Many thanks, Gabrielle Teller.”

“A little billet from a pretty lady?” said the matron.

“Yes,” Carrick said, tucking the letter away again.

“Your sweetheart?” she asks.

“That remains to be seen,” he said, unthinkingly.

Gabrielle Teller was a good correspondent, which was particularly awkward for him as he wanted to forget all about both being bested and the person who had done it. He particularly wanted to forget the way she had looked when he had insisted on granting her the favor for her win.

_Dear Mr. Carrick,_

_I hope London is treating you well. Thank you for forwarding your new address. Today I visited the parson with my cousin Maria to bring some of the seeds from our herb garden which he had expressed an interest in last season. We were able to speak briefly about the sermon of the week, which put great emphasis on the beauty of honorable behavior. I asked him if he thought that dishonorable behavior forever stained a person in others’ memories, or if there was any redemption. He was quite kind about entertaining my inquiries, though his answers did not quite line up with my own particular reason for asking. Perhaps you will have some wisdom to add?_

_… I do wish to apologize. The scheme in which you were caught up was inspired by great haste, too many novels, and a healthy amount of lachrymose company. Both Maria and I were in turmoil after the long festivities came to an end. Neither of us are generally of use when there is not a wedding to help host, and both of us had reasons to feel some lowness of spirit in consequence of the event itself._

_I had quite given up on the request, as foolish, by the time we came to the point. I do not know if you regret your insistence the wager be fulfilled. I do know that despite my regrets I will hold you to your promise. As we have previously established there are few of philosophical bent in Middleton. I have been reading some of the thinner volumes of the books on my father’s shelves and I was curious if you had read…_

_Dear Mr. Carrick,_

_Hopefully this letter will reach you with all the accompanying gifts of solicitude intact. The whole house here was quite distressed to hear of your illness, and each certain that it was a consequence of lacking warmth, or nourishment, or friends to rely on. You may see the corresponding remedies and their patrons. We had to dissuade the vicar’s wife from sending you new potatoes from her garden several times over, so if she managed to sneak in something of vegetable nature that perished along the way do not blame me._

_The vicar has been hoping to hear from friends about a more suitable place for you, and grows anxious as he gets responses that are not what he wishes. I’m sure you have had letters from him yourself, but it is worth mentioning that when I visit hoping to talk with him of the significance of the Jerusalem gates, he quite frequently laments this. I am not quite sure why he thinks I am a suitable person to discuss your concerns with, since the fact that we are in correspondence is generally held as scandal, but as you know he is a gentle and generous man. He forgives me being forward and instead welcomes me as a fellow in an interest in your future. …_

_Your friend Mr. Solo came to visit the squire on very thin pretexts, and it was he who revealed your infirmity to us. Do forgive him and practice being as generous as a parson ought to be. It gives us something to think about here other than whether he will make any interesting declarations. He knows better than anyone how little he has to gain from making one, which is very much on Maria’s mind._

_You know as well as I what little he has in incentives to visit Middleton if he did not plan to do so, once he feels the Squire has some time to consider it naturally and decide it would suit. For amusement, he must tease me with falsehoods about your intention to come with him if you had been well. You may contradict him if you like, but you can also spare the effort. I know it is tedious cooling his heels here._

_I rediscovered the passage I referred to in my previous letter, and you were right about it relying on an interpretation of the Hebrew for messenger…_

To his amusement, their “engagement” came about several months into their correspondence. He did not know quite how they were discovered to have met each other, but it seemed that Mrs. Hettisham had taken some of the blame for that, so now she also bore some of the blame for the foolish engagement. Miss Teller wrote not too long afterward that her family was considering the virtues of having her debut in London, so she could meet more suitable men.

The fact that this bland statement stung a little was a reminder he still had much to learn in humility.

She warned him, 8 months later, approximately when they were arriving in London and said she would write him again to set a time to have him call on them. He was not surprised when his next letter went unanswered for three weeks, but sometime in the fourth was growing unnecessarily concerned when Solo dropped in on him.

“You look absolutely haggard,” was his friend’s first comment after making himself known at the door. “The new boys that bad?”

“No, I was asked by the vicar down the street to help him with some of his work, and was knocked up in the middle of the night to attend a death bed.”

Solo scrutinized him like a particularly strange type of hat, then shook his head. “Well, I’ve come to tell you I’m in town.”

“Following the Middleton caravan?” Carrick gibed.

“Good to be seen about, the squire’s connections aren’t too nice for a man of business to deal with.”

Elias dropped this line of questioning, since it was unusual fo Solo to be evasive, and put up with his friend for about an hour before clearing the glasses they had been drinking from and wishing him goodnight.

They’d promised to meet in the park, which was a little out of Elias’ usual circuit, but would be a welcome change from the crowded streets around his lodgings and the house where he was tutoring. He took the opportunity to dress up a little. They were garments he had bought for his introduction to a new parish, which gave a little twist of the knife, but he was working to accept that it might not happen. He was strolling along with half an eye on any single gentlemen for sign of Solo, when he heard his name hailed from a little distance.

Looking over, his first thought was, _Oh, what is he doing here?_

His second thought was, _Oh, that girl is absolutely provoking._


	9. Chapter 9

Looking over, his first thought was, _Oh, I haven’t seen that friend in a while!_

His second thought was, _Oh, that girl is absolutely provoking._

He quashed the third thought trying to emerge, while he stalked over mostly to prevent more people looking to see who was calling for whom.

“Hello, Hettisham,” he said with some emphasis.

“Hallo, parson,” she said, as he discovered with some surprise that she had a dimple. He had not apparently thought this worth noting when she was just a lad.

“Did you put Solo up to this?”

“Solo? Is he about?” At his no-doubt darkening expression, she hastily admitted, “Yes. I’m sorry. I just wanted to see you once in a way that made it easier to talk. See, you’re angry and that means it’s not as hard to say something.”

“How did you get here, you little fool? Are you totally unaccompanied?”

Gabrielle’s eyes dropped, and the part of him that had been silenced earlier tried to draw his notice again to what it had to say, but was overwhelmed by his sense of outrage.

“I came with Maria, in a carriage,” she said softly. “I will go back to her and we’ll return directly to the house, never fear. I do not mean to make a scene, but I just wanted to see you once. Without…”

She did not finish her sentence, and turned. Elias also pivoted on his heel and went back how he’d come, only to be caught by Solo at the gate.

“You,” Elias said bitterly, “need to stop being a help to that reckless girl!”

“What? Were you challenged to a duel again? Sorry to have missed that.”

“No, she was…in costume.”

“I am also sorry to have missed that,” Solo admitted, “though it seems to have made you furious. Is she provoking you on purpose, do you think?”

“She said she wanted to talk with me angry rather than…I don’t know what.”

“Ah, yes. No, I know what she means. Easier for you to at least see each other first while you’re being a self-righteous jackass and not a pillar of salt or something.”

As if asking a perhaps sensitive question, Solo added, “Was she…still lovely?”

Elias swore and walked away from his friend, who followed with an annoying chuckle. The thought he had been suppressing broke free with this jab, however, and aired itself in what could have been verbalized most closely as, _He’s got the right of it._

Maria was very patient with Gabrielle’s first quarter hour or so of restless pacing and muttering of self-condemnations, but then said, “You knew he would hate it. Why did you do it?”

“Because, it seemed important to remind him. I can tell from his recent letters that…well, he is quite kind in them. He’s forgotten what I’m like.”

“You’re not always like _that_ ,” Maria protested.

“I can’t bear it,” Gabrielle burst out. “I can’t bear to love him still. If he had gone cold or gone offended, then it would have ended things, and it would all be easy. We would all have what…what we want.”

“Except that you want to be with him,” Maria said softly. “You cannot forget that.”

“No,” said Gabrielle, close to tears. “He shouldn’t have answered my letters so well. He shouldn’t have seen me and looked glad at first!”

“Well, all this blaming is not helping. What are you going to do about it now?”

What she did was send him a note with their address and the invitation to call.

Then she went and reread the letters she had from him to try and make herself see a resentment, a distaste, anything that could rescue her from feeling so drawn to him. But neither his letters nor her heart were so obliging.

_Dear Miss Teller,_

_Your letter reached me in good time, as I was just about to quit my apartments in Cheapside for ones nearer the school where I am going to be teaching. You may use this new direction for any further letters._

_My trip was uneventful once I reached the stage coach successfully. Bandits have disappointed me in all prior trips and I hope continue to do so despite my boyhood keenness for an encounter._

_You may, if you see him to speak to, give Solo my regards. We are not much for letters between us unless it is to arrange a visit._

_His hand is neat when it comes to ledgers and copying but if you ever have a chance to view a sample of his personal writing you will understand there is pain for his correspondents to endure. Luckily, he is not much of a letter-writer._

_Nor am I, if this is an example._

_Your servant,_

_Etc. Elias Carrick_

_Dear Miss Teller,_

_I did appreciate the gifts toward my recovery, and I believe they all reached me well._

_The proper amount of items ascribed to the appropriate senders arrived, though if Ms. Parson sent any new potatoes they were compassionately removed before I received the parcel._

_I am a bit abashed to admit that I was nearly all recovered by the time they came, but the tea and throat-warmer soothed the last dregs of the headcold and the rest cheered me from the doldrums of being abed with no one to nurse me but the cross landlady._

_Once my head had cleared up most of the way but I was still not comfortable out in the cold I was able to do some reading in the volume you recommended…_

Carrick stopped pacing long enough to realize he’d clenched the short invitation until it was rumpled like a day’s worn cravat. He set it on the small desk in his apartments and smoothed it out with irritation. He was mentally dictating how he would respond, when Solo came up from the street, whistling an unseasonable carol.

“Is that the fair Miss Teller’s hand?” he inquired as he entered.

“Do you know it so well, then?” Elias demanded.

“No, I merely hazarded a feminine writer must be she. You are still cross about yesterday, I see.”

“Cross?” Carrick was amazed. “The young woman who is openly proclaiming to be my betrothed accosted me in a public park wearing the clothes of a man, and you think I am merely cross?”

“She is not actually openly proclaiming it. The family wished her to keep it private for the time being, so she has obliged.”

Solo’s wry expression indicated the convenience of this. Why did that not make him feel better?

“She has sent her formal invitation for me to call on her at home.”

Solo scrutinized him. Then he said, “I see why I like her for you now. As a friend, I have pulled you into the world as you would not go on your own. She has the same audacity. It’s good for you to be put off-balance every now and then.”

“I was about to reply that she ought to cry off from the engagement soon, now that her plan has succeeded.”

“Only if she merely wished for a trip to London–which I think we both know is not the case. Anyhow, you will not. You may compose such a note, but I don’t think you would actually stoop to sending it, even if I didn’t say so. You must see her, you know. For all the foolishness, you don’t want to make her appear poorly in front of her so-worthy family. Besides, you haven’t really gotten to have a real conversation. You should call on the family, and go with me to take her and Maria to the park on Thursday.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you are a man of honor, and you implicitly gave your word that you would treat her well when you let her say you are engaged.”

“I take it as personal affront when you are right about respectability matters,” Elias said, but without rancor.

“I am calculating, so I am usually a good judge of what the proper thing to do is, even if I choose not to do it. You go by your conscience, which is less reliable in results.”

Alas, Elias’ conscience confirmed what Solo’s cunning said about the right thing to do. He went the next day to wait on Miss Teller. He sat for half an hour with her and her cousin Mrs. Hettisham, alongside the newlywed couple from Middleton’s whirl of festivities. It occurred to him, during this very ordinary visit, that Mrs. Hettisham was as ill-suited to her kin as was her cousin. Clever, imaginative, a bit of a daring reader if he guessed right. Their chaperoning wedded couple spent most of the time asking him questions about his connections, his hometown, and telling uninspired anecdotes about their own. Since he had spent a few weeks in Middleton, he had already been told most of these tales at least once.

He promised to come walk with the ladies to the library in the future as well as to accompany Solo the next day, and took his leave. He shared only a few words with Miss Teller herself, and he wasn’t sure what to think of that. Perhaps it was for the best.


	10. Chapter 10

The call from Mr. Carrick had been even worse than Gabrielle had expected. He had not addressed her personally above five times in the quarter hour, and while her cousins had prattled on about the mundanities of Middleton, as if he had not been there himself and met many of the people, she had felt her chance to smooth things over fading. There was no chance to speak apart, and he left as quickly as might be expected.

She was a little nonplussed to have him actually come with Mr. Solo to take her and Maria to the park. Even more confusing was his pointedness at handing her into the carriage. 

Granted, Solo leapt into the carriage to take the seat across from Maria, but this was only after Mr. Carrick made the gesture. He was not usually courtly the way Mr. Solo could be. The drive to the park was filled with both Maria and Mr. Solo being witty without giving much away of what was on their minds. When they got down to walk, however, Mr. Solo took Maria’s arm with the sort of quiet immediacy that told a deeper story. So Gabrielle was left with her great judge and critic.

“How have you been enjoying London?” he asked.

“I feel we have not yet begun to enjoy London. We have seen a great many of my uncle and aunt’s friends, and have many plans for shopping that seem rather daunting so keep being put off. I will not be presented, so there is no hurry on any of these things.”

“So the city itself has not offered anything new to you?”

“Barring my escape to the park that one day, I get to see none of it. We are packed from one place to another, jolted and shuttered in from the noise and dirt, and are ushered into rooms that seem rather similar to the ones we left behind at home, possessed of people who also are much like those we already knew. This is my first time in the park to actually spend time here.”

“Are you a little homesick?”

She was going to answer that defensively at first. Instead she answered, “I was able to take my time, at home, looking around me. I am friends with our neighbors, and more free to go about. I had hoped to have my life broadened here, but that has not yet taken place.”

She did not know if it would ever come to pass. Her companions did not feel stifled by their connections, and teas in parlors. At least, not her aunt or her cousin and his wife, who were those making most of the decisions.

“So you have not found it as you had envisioned, when you made this plan.”

She withdrew her hand from his arm, needled.

“A great many things went poorly, if indeed there was ever a plan. But haven’t you made me feel wrong enough? Will we never get past that?”

“Until the situation has closed, I don’t think I’m likely to forget how it came about,” said Mr. Carrick.

He was not looking at her. His stubborn jaw was angled toward a clutch of young girls in bright colors playing some chaotic but harmless game together, overseen by matrons leaning together from heavy family coaches.

“Then,” she said, “I release you, sir, from any further obligation. I will let my family know this evening that our engagement is off. You can call again if you wish to be perceived as ending it on good terms, or you may choose otherwise. I will say, I am sorry to have burdened you with an unwanted connection.”

“Thank you.”

Her usually too-brisk steps turned to something slightly more laggardly as the silence weighed.

“We must not let Solo and Mrs. Hettisham stray too far from us,” he said, turning back to offer his arm again as though it were a lack of support that made her slow. Seeing her face, though, he seemed startled.

“Child, are you crying?”

“Please do not begin to consider my feelings now,” she said, schooling her expression. “I will not make a scene for you to endure again in the park. How have you gotten on with the Dunbury paper?”

They forced themselves to talk about angels and heavenly territories for a while, trailing the other pair at a distance so that they were never in danger of interrupting the confidences of those two heads bent together.

After their first turn, they returned to the carriage for some refreshments. Gabrielle then said she wished to go into the shade of the few trees gathered close by, and did anyone else wish to go?

Mrs. Hettisham did not wish to, so Mr. Carrick was obliged to squire her. She did not take his offered arm, though her pace preserved the appearance that she didn’t wish to escape his presence.

“I was ungracious earlier,” he said, as they made the edge of the shade, and her steps slowed and they were more alone than any time previous in the park. “I am glad to have you end the farce, but I am not eager to cut the connection. I know that a great part of this situation comes of you being alone in the world, without companions who are peers for you in terms of intellect. I will continue to visit, and you can explain that you do not wish to marry me anymore when it suits you best.”

-

She turned a scathing eye on him, and he saw the same martial steel of their fencing bout in her expression. That he imagined, reading her letters, when she was making a particularly sharp argument about something she had read.

“Damn it,” she said. “It is so unfair that I like you so. You are able to hurt me even by being kind.”

This time tears really were standing in her eyes. And she was angry–angry about being trapped in the wrong kind of life for her temperament. Angry that she was clever, and reckless, and skilled with nowhere to put any of that energy. As angry and helpless as he had been, when the living had been withdrawn, his hope of a different future than his present fading…

“Don’t look like that,” he said. He had stepped toward her without thinking, put his hands on her arms to stop her from–he wasn’t sure. “What am I supposed to do when you look like that?”

“What does it matter to you? We are not engaged. We are not friends. I am a woman you despise.”

“I do not despise you.”

She pulled away from his hold. “Maybe you ought to. Maybe you should stop doing me the charity of being a friend, knowing I am in love with you.”

He wished to stalk away, but he had accompanied her there, and couldn’t leave her alone. He could feel the heat on his face, and he could also not escape the realization that he was “cross” because she always seemed to arrive at conclusions so far ahead of him.

“Maybe I ought,” he said slowly, “but I refuse. We aren’t pretending to be friends–we _are_ friends. I may have disapproved of some things you have done, but so have I disapproved of things that Solo has done. And I have no right to chide you or ask you to do differently, except as someone who cares about your life. That was not the case that day we…made our agreement. But it is now.”

Some others had wandered toward the trees, following their example, so he fell quiet. After a moment, he extended his arm tentatively–ready to withdraw at any reluctance.

Instead, she took it and held on as if seeking reassurance.

“I miss the country, but not particularly Middleton,” she said, picking up another thread more suited to public conversation. “There’s a hunting lodge where my father and I lived for a year, and it’s surrounded by woods and fields that are older and wilder. If I ride out into the hills of Middleton, I can feel almost like I’m somewhere a little like that place.”

“I like places where trees are the most populous members of the community, and the most venerable,” he agreed.

“There is a living,” she went on, “in the village there. Modest, but among good folk.”

“I could not receive a living from you,” he said, certain he did not misread her implication.

“Why not? You have done me a great service when you might have done me a deserving ill turn.”

“What sort of man accepts such a gift from a woman he was once engaged to?”

“A man made the plaything of a spoiled, rich young lady, taking advantage of his honorable nature? Though perhaps that puts you in too poor a light. I see that now.”

They soon returned to the carriage, and spoke no more of it. But the way question the question had really come into his mind was, _What sort of man chooses a humble living in the stead of a woman he might be in love with?_

It was too difficult to try and explain in person all the conflicting things on his mind. He tried writing a letter, and spoiled a sheet of it by realizing how inappropriate or easily misunderstood some of the things he had written were. He decided he would just go call on her, in case she had broken the engagement that night.

He called on the house, and found them out. He left a card with the message he would be happy to escort them to the library the next day.

This expedition was approved, and it was not convenient for the aunt or sister in law to join, so it was just Mrs. Hettisham and a subdued Miss Teller who were to go. Once they had entered the library, Mrs. Hettisham took him a little aside while Miss Teller was occupied asking about some books she was waiting on.

“Tomorrow morning, my mama will be taking the newlyweds to meet a great-aunt it is determined should not be overwhelmed with too many people at once. This is a relief to my feelings, as being dragged in the wake of the bridal promenade is growing ever more tiresome. I think you should come to call during that time. It has done neither of you any good to have no chance to speak privately. No, do not explain. If you come, it will be a good opportunity for you; if you do not, that is your affair. Say no more of it.”

He might not have taken her advice, but Miss Teller had won her prizes, two volumes of a history of the east, and she was so improved in spirits that she quizzed him in his own knowledge of the Orient the whole drive back. When he saw them into the house, she smiled as she bid him goodbye, the same open expression so winsome in the lad she had appeared to be, once. Mrs. Hettisham lifted a brow at him and he nodded slightly before bowing her in.

She was right that not having a chance to speak openly was only frustrating them both.


	11. Chapter 11

The house was quiet, in the wake of the departed visiting contingency, and Gabrielle had settled in with her book in the parlor while Maria perused a catalog to continue drawing up her list.

“When do you think Aunt Georgia will have finished her visits and be ready to return home?”

Maria set down her pencil with some deliberation.

“Why do you ask?”

“I had thought we might be asked to mix with people more, be part of more general parties. But I don’t believe that is going to come about, so I am in no passion to draw out our stay. I was thinking of hinting so to your mama.”

“Well, we must be patient,” Maria began, but Gabrielle interrupted her.

“No–I can see that it is the same here as it was at home. I am not quite good enough company to be promoted as an acquaintance. I do not…well, I understand. I resent it a little, but now I must own the part of it that is my fault. Your mother cannot feel quite easy about me.”

Maria was quiet a moment.

“I still think that despite mama’s reluctance there might be a chance,” Maria said, “but if you find it very dreadful to be here, we might leave before Christmas. Though I would think Mama would wish to stay, and the roads will grow bad soon. So we might be here until early spring.”

There was a pause of reflection on this, and how the time was to be spent if they did not make more friends of their own, interrupted by footsteps in the hall and a knock.

“Mr. Carrick, ma'am,” said the manservant, letting in the visitor as if his call was expected.

After a startled look at Maria, placidly rising to greet him, Gabrielle scrambled up with her cheeks reddening to do the same.

“I am honored, Mr. Carrick,” Maria was saying. “You must find it hard to get away from your duties.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied. “I could not make these calls if I were still at the school. As it is, my charges spend some of their days learning to ride while the weather is good.”

His eyes were on Gabrielle as he took the seat Maria waved toward, and she could not read them. He seemed to have more color in his cheeks than the day before, but perhaps that was just from walking. Why had he come? How had Maria known he was coming?

“You should come take us out again tomorrow, then, if your students are going to be engaged. What was the family’s name again?”

“Laurelton, Sir Henry Laurelton’s family.”

“Well, we were glad you were able to get a place there for the time being. You seemed very ill while in the grammar school.”

“I do still on occasion help at the school. It is a charity school so they are always in need of more teachers, and I am the only one at the moment versed in geography.”

“I would have paid more attention in school if my geography teacher had as nice a voice as yours, Mr. Carrick. Instead, he had this nasal high voice that made the whole world seem dreadful and crowded with too many places. Oh, I must fetch down that scarf I was working on, excuse me a moment!”

Gabrielle was left alone with Mr. Carrick.

She had set aside her book but could only stare at the embroidery under her hands. She was afraid to meet his eye without Maria to shield her. Still, she asked, “Have you changed your mind about the living?”

He shifted in his chair, then answered, “They would never let you do that, you know. Whoever holds your property in trust. But if we are going to be vulgar and speak of business, no. I have not come to accept that inappropriate gift from you.”

Feeling a little more on familiar ground with his slightly chastening way of putting this, she looked up.

He was leaning forward, as if braced to take a blow.

“There is another inappropriate gift I have been reconsidering, however,” he added.

“I think I might cry off on Saturday,” she said, dropping her eyes again. “That will give them Sunday to be upset with me without upsetting any plans, then on Monday the morning calls will give them the relief of gossip.”

“I came in person to ask you a question that has been on my mind from the beginning, that I have been too proud to ask.” He hesitated, and she forced herself to meet his eye again. He seemed to be trying to phrase the question with care. “Was there a reason you decided on me? Rather than Solo, or someone else?”

There was a tenor to the way he asked that pulled her off her footing, if she had ever been on it to begin with. She took a breath, eyes still meeting his.

She would have to be honest.

“I first saw you at the party at my uncle’s house dancing with Mrs. Pratt. She is the one who speaks constantly of her son Jerry–yes, now you know who that is. I thought you were very handsome, and also very kind for treating her so well. And when you began to help the minister around the village, it confirmed who you seemed to be. And gentlemanly, kind young men are not often in my path, in Middleton.”

She broke off, growing even more embarrassed. Set aside her embroidery completely.

“Mr. Carrick, you ask as though I might have chosen anyone for the prank, but the only reason I did it was because you were leaving.”

“I see.”

There was silence again for a moment. She glanced up and he was still poised as if about to jump into battle. He inhaled sharply and asked, “Did you ever wish for the false engagement to become real? Has that…become stronger or weaker, that affection?”

She laughed, not a very cheerful sound.

“I know I have put you in a dreadful position. You must excuse me for not having thought it through. Maria and I had only spoken of asking to correspond, she was as shocked by what I said as you were. As I was, once I reflected on it.”

“Setting aside whether I am in any sort of position or not?” he insisted.

“I keep thinking about it.” She clasped her hands on her lap, reclasped them, trying to find a way they felt at ease. “I tried to picture us in my family’s home, having arguments or finding each other tiresome. But all I could see was a man who like my father had the sort of compassion and intellect to do some good for the people who depended on his judgment. Every time I ask the man of business for information and he puts me off, every time I wonder if anyone has rotated the rye or thinned the trees, and if old Mrs. Johnson has had her chimneys checked, I…I think of you. And I think of how if I were only more given to propriety perhaps I wouldn’t have alienated you the first time I spoke to you–I wouldn’t have been kept away from guests as vigilantly.”

He moved, and her white-clenched hands were suddenly in his warm grasp, as he knelt beside her.

“Miss Teller, you did not ruin anything. I have come to know you well enough to both understand why you would do something so wild, and to know you would always try to choose what is right over what looks right to other people. I do not think ill of you. And if I had known part of your inclination was in how I could help you care for your people, then I would have loved you sooner. You’re not wrong that the unconventional approach made it difficult for me, but much of that was my pride.”

“Mr. Carrick, I cannot ruin you by actually marrying you.”

“Ruin me?” He laughed at this. “I am the motherless son of a merchant, who died with only enough money put by to educate me beyond my station. I have no fortune or reputation to be ruined. And the whole world would congratulate me if I ever did succeed to the place of your husband. But first, as a man who does love you, you must allow me at least to save you from ruining yourself. Please, may I ask your uncle for your hand in marriage?”

There was a sound from the hallway, but he would not let go of her hands, and Maria said, “Oh, good. You are not fighting. Begging your pardon.”

Gabrielle turned her face and laughed against the tears in her eyes. “Oh, this is a farce.”

“What would be a farce,” he said, a little harshly, “would be for you to wait until I fell in love with you to break an engagement neither of us wants broken.”

He did not wish to sound desperate, but it was obvious to him how this could be resolved and she seemed to be rejecting his solution.

“You called me a little fool, and called me a child,” she protested, though she had turned her hands in his grasp and did not draw them away now.

“Well, I won’t apologize for the first, as you are being one now. The child part was merely me trying to ignore the truth.”

After a short pause, while his eyes searched her face, turned from him still as if she didn’t want to admit something, she said, “I am sorry for offering you the living. I did not mean to embarrass you.”

With this admission, he felt himself on firm enough ground to move, sitting beside her on the divan and turning her face up to his.

“I would have been pleased,” he whispered, “if you had not made me first a much more flattering proposition.”

“I like you more,” she said, answering his earlier question. “I don’t know how, but I just keep liking you more.”

With this provocation, what could he do but kiss her?

Just briefly, before he smoothed away her tears, then stood.

“I will call Mrs. Hettisham back,” he said, “so she can still pretend to have kept a close eye on us. Then I must start back across town.”

“Elias,” she said, stopping him in his tracks.

He turned. And she was grinning at his expression, a dimple evident in her left cheek.

“That was a test to see if you meant any of this. I promise not to call you that in front of anyone else.”

“You may, if you like, once I have official permission to marry you. But I will probably only call you Gabrielle in private, to spare my own blushes.”

And he was pleased to see her as flustered by her name from his lips.

Mrs. Hettisham was hovering, not very convincingly, on the stair from their rooms. She came down as he stepped out, and fluttered in looking pleased. She ignored the high color on her cousin’s cheeks and settled in with the shawl she was working, and when Elias got up after about five minutes of vague planning for the carriage ride tomorrow, she waved him off unconcernedly. Miss Teller, however, saw him to the door and in a low voice from the step, said, “Will you write to me tonight?”

“Shall I deliver it to your hand tomorrow?”

She nodded.

“Then certainly I will.”


	12. Chapter 12

After he made this promise, she saw his full smile for the first time. He then hid it by kissing her hand and turning away, but her heart swelled almost painfully as she returned to the sitting room.

“That went better than I had hoped,” Maria commented.

Gabrielle touched her cheek to see if her blushing was perceptible in temperature.

“You asked him to come here?”

“I merely gave him knowledge of an opportunity, and he took it. So, will you be breaking the engagement?”

“No. He will be applying to your father officially soon. I…I hope we have done the right thing. Oh, Maria, is it right of me?”

“If he has fallen in love with you despite all your harebrained escapades (and I will say he looks fully a man in love) then you have done better than you could ever have hoped. And he is such a fine man–a bit large, but he carries it so well. Do you think if _I_ challenged him to a duel…?”

“You might try challenging Mr. Solo to one. Surely it could not make your situation thornier than it already is?” Gabrielle said drily.

Maria reflected on this for a moment, then shook her head, sighing.

“It will not do. He is no fencer, but I am worse. I cannot risk him having the advantage of me in negotiations.”

“Negotiations? Has he deigned to negotiate?”

Maria did not answer this directly, but Gabrielle thought there was a little triumph in her smile.

Until today she’d found the way the two of them dealt with each other silly, but it seemed she and Elias had been silly about very simple things as well. With Maria and Mr. Solo, it made a certain amount of sense they were in no particular rush to resolve their situation. Maria did not absolutely hate her life as a widow with few responsibilities (when her family was not hosting a large wedding) and Solo had his own way of life. Their affection for each other was sincere, but the game of flirtation had its own charms.

That was something neither she nor Mr. Carrick were skilled in.

_Dear Gabrielle,_

_When you asked me to write you a letter I knew exactly what you were requesting. It’s only as I sit down to compose it that the problems of writing arise. I wish to pen you a love letter, but first I wish to spend more time getting to know you in person so I might write more intelligently of your voice or your eyes or something charming like that. Instead, I know you very well from letters where I heard your words in a voice a little like your own, and I know how they have changed me. I wish I knew more of your hopes and preferences so I could describe a future for us or detail what plans I have. When you reply, I hope you will share some of those with me. I wish to say sweet things to you, but I don’t yet know how._

_Instead, I have only the few bare meetings we have and this wealth of sentiment I am not entirely comfortable with. Do you also find it unsettling? I feel you will understand. I think it makes me understand you better. Did you write all those letters with their scrutiny of theological arguments and lively curiosity about my reading while also feeling a little uneasy in your seat, or a bit lost for how to hide the depths of foolishness you felt you must be displaying? I hope not. But I can sympathize, if you did._

_I also that by putting the things in my head down on paper now you know something so very delicate about me: that I have unaccustomed, tender feelings. I will be exposing myself completely. How can I say what I am thinking without it being so obvious how little I know about how to handle myself in this situation?_

_I can only start by recounting some of the ways our previous letters have begun that change…_

Elias also penned a very different letter that evening, which he posted rather than delivering himself.

_Dear Sir,_

_You may have long wondered why I did not write to you or visit you as I ought. Truth to tell, I had no confidence such an application was warranted. This peculiar situation leads me to write now from an arrears, hoping you are generous enough to have sympathy with me._

_I had the privilege of getting to know your niece through a correspondence begun immediately after I quit Middleton. We met by happenstance on my last days there, and she desired to have a friend to talk to about matters she felt a man of the church might easily discuss. She made some jokes about our engagement I did not consider serious. It put me in an awkward position when she announced she was coming to London and it became clear members of your family considered us affianced._

_During our correspondence I have become quite fond of Miss Teller and when meeting in person for what might as well be the first time, it became clear that whatever her jokes her affection for me was quite real._

_Sir, you will no doubt have some reservations on the point of my sincerity. I stand to benefit greatly from a marriage to your niece, and you might well consider this a piece of impertinence on my part. I can only say that my time knowing Miss Seymour has caused me to esteem her, even as a very young woman, and I would not dare to lift my eyes to her if it did not seem the rumors of our engagement were received without too much objection._

_It is a misfortune to me that I must write to you, rather than speak to you in person, when you might test my words by seeing my person. However, I do trust that you will consider your niece’s happiness first, and I have faith this connection would make both of us quite happy._

_I am quite happy to direct you to those that might speak for my character…_

The Squire came to town not so much in response to Mr. Carrick’s letter as in defense from his wife’s flurry of missives about the matter. He spent an hour closeted with first Mr. Carrick, then with his niece’s man of business. He then took tea with the family circle (which included Mr. Carrick) and congratulated his niece and Mr. Carrick heartily, while his wife echoed the congratulations with a bit more restraint.

While Mr. Carrick’s measured letter had not revealed any considerable trepidation, it was clear to those who were paying attention that his mind was greatly relieved. When he later left for the evening, the Squire confided to his son that he rather thought the Carrick fellow did love his niece. It was convenient, though the terms of her inheritance were certain to keep him in line, to have them both be attached.

The Squire’s wife was dubious–she felt a man who could form an attachment to an uncertain sort of girl through letters alone was suspect, and whatever they had not told them about how they had become acquainted was likely to be even worse.

Both were in harmony over the way this solved several of their difficulties, however. And while Mr. Carrick was not often free to socialize, they thought it would be nice for Gabrielle to get to see some of the entertainments of London if he could be in the party.

Gabrielle was happy to go, though she had long realized that London society, or at least the circles her aunt was part of, were not more rich than Middleton in philosophers. The aunt was rather bemused by the program of these visits to museums and galleries rather than concerts and pantomimes, but she settled it in her mind that the couple had much to talk about and these others were too noisy for them.

In fact, the couple’s respective friends were a little unnerved by the fact that they seemed not driven to talk much at all while together. They exchanged letters in an embarrassing volume, but rather spent their time together without much chatter as if getting used to each others’ company. Considering that they were engaged after only a few meetings in person, this might have been worrisome, but Solo for his part thought it very like his friend to find it difficult to speak much to his fiancée, while Maria thought they way they gazed at each other spoke volumes.

The foreboding shopping happened on a rather hectic note after all, with a bridal outfitting to accommodate before the family returned to the country. After much debate, it was decided by the Squire that the wedding should happen in Middleton with the local banns as was unexceptionable, in the spring. Carrick would fulfil his year’s engagement to tutor the boys of the Laurelton family, then come to stay with the vicar until the wedding date. The fact that this was just enough time to seem quite long to the affianced young people, and coincided with the date his widowed daughter was to remove her household to a new leased home, vacating for her husband’s heir, was foremost on every mind but his. Still, the day came to pass, and Maria found it convenient that her cousin’s home in Redding Cross was being prepared for occupation when inconvenient obstacles happened in her relocation.

The newlyweds themselves set out to spend their honeymoon at the little hunting-box home Gabrielle had loved as a younger girl. This was the only decision on which she had held her ground absolutely, despite neither her aunt nor her uncle understanding why she should want such a thing. As her husband-to-be agreed with her, they finally gave in.

So, after a ceremony during which Gabrielle had felt an urge to both giggles and tears, she found herself in a carriage with Elias Carrick, at the beginning of a five-hour drive.

“I don’t believe we’ve been in a coach alone together since I abducted you,” she noted, more from nerves than from a sense of nostalgia.

“I regret to admit you are correct,” Elias replied.

“May I lean on you?” she asked politely.

“Please do,” he said, with equal politeness.

She threaded her arm through his and tucked herself beside him. After a moment, she said, “I’m not sure how I ever had the nerve to see that ridiculous plot through. And to think how well it served me!”

“It is quite ridiculous. But I have spent some time in our separation trying to determine if there is another way you could have achieved the same thing, and I don’t see how else you could have done it. So I am grateful.”

“Are you? Even though I bested you in fencing in front of your friend?”

“I do hold that a little against you,” he said, with mock consideration.

“How shall I make amends?”

He looked down at her as if pondering this point, then swept her from her spot beside him on the bench onto his lap. “I think a kiss for every point you scored might help ease the sting somewhat.”

She gave him two swift kisses, and he chuckled. Then he said, “Alas, that was not satisfactory. I think I will require a kiss for every stroke of the fight. Do you agree?”

“A mere favor,” she murmured.

And while she soon lost count (not that she had any idea of how many blows they had exchanged in the fight), the subsequent kisses grew sweeter and more prolonged, a favor shared rather than given.

“I will,” he breathed, “fly with you to the border. We need not cross swords ever again.”

“Oh no,” she said, “I could not do that to so respectable a man. But will you sometimes write me letters?”

“I will write you such letters you will be shocked by them, coming from such a upright and fastidious man.”

Since she had received some love letters in the days just before that had made her blush, these words said right into her ear made her hide her face against his shoulder.


	13. POSTSCRIPT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @)_)~*~*~ Happy Valentine's Day! @)_)~*~*~

_Dear Gabrielle,_

_I woke this morning before you and felt compelled to use my pen again to say the things I find it hard to express in the moment. I sometimes feel I don't know the man who is here in this life, learning alongside you what is owed to the tenants and the staff, who shares with you a home and a future. I both feel as though this man has been incredibly lucky, and wonder if the man I once was, afraid to be disliked and eager to prove himself worthy of a living, could ever have truly become this._

_He might speak with the tongue of angels, but what does he know?_

_A bold young person asked this man if it was wrong to borrow a saddle without permission, and he felt perfectly authorized to answer, only to discover the thorny problem involved the proper behavior of women in relation to men as well as subterfuge and the rights of property. Did Jerry ever find out what you'd been up to?_

_You asked then how we can tell if we are good instead of merely making people comfortable. I think I am learning from you that to be good is to often make people uncomfortable. To be good to you, I would face the chilly reception of your aunt a thousand times over. Of course, I may yet have to, but the point remains._

_I hope we are always good to each other over being polite. I hope we together learn to be good to the people around us, as well._

_I can tell you in words and gesture of my affection, and I will, but this part of it I find easier still to write about to you._

_My lovely, impolitic bride--I am waiting for you to wake up so I can slip this letter to you like an illicit love-note, but also so I can laugh with you and live with you and be amazed that I get to be in this life despite myself._

_Your most devoted…_

_Dear Elias, my heart:_

_I know you are away on business that you are doing for my sake, but I still resent it. It's my first time without you since our wedding day, which seems both an age and also far too recent for you to leave me so. But I will make you feel guilty if I expound on this theme, and that will make you cross, and I know you want to make a good impression in the village, so I will refrain._

_I will instead tell you that I have come to appreciate even more the foolish habit of writing letters to each other though we are in the same house, so I might pretend this letter is just another such a letter. I love when I can hear your voice down the hall from my room when you are asking Dunn for your boots. I enjoy that we have both a little home to be underfoot of each other and a larger one to pretend to be respectable in. And I particularly like your idea of going to London to stay with Maria when my cousin's coming-out party happens. And there are a great many things I think I would enjoy about London with your company to make me respectable._

_You are so clever about noticing things I hadn't even realized myself. I do resent my failed trip to London a little, though I thought I had got over it. This acuteness is among your best features._

_Your habit of not quite asking me to cease doing things that make you uneasy, however, is not. I have been riding side-saddle, but I don't think I should give up riding altogether--certainly not before I have reason to. I promise to be reasonable when I do, but I would rather be strong than coddled._

_I have remembered, by the way, that I wanted to see if Mrs. Henson could share the marmalade recipe with me. Mrs. Dunn was glad to receive the gift of some, but I ate it all in a matter of days, so she is put out. …_

With a gentlemanly, sober husband to ease her course into society (without her aunt's demurral getting in the way), Gabrielle's second trip to London was a great success. In a reversal that was deeply amusing to their respective swains, Gabrielle gave Maria entré into society that was much more appreciative of their wit and beauty without too much interest in scrutinizing their respectability. While as a married woman and widow they weren't quite the gay things they might have been as single ladies at similar parties, they were neither of them too unsatisfied with their places. A few years after Gabrielle's marriage, Maria was bequeathed with an unexpected settlement when her late husband's aunt passed on. It was enough to give her the independence to convince Mr. Solo to become a fortune-hunter in her case in particularly, and then to sponsor her husband in a career in politics. Even her mother agreed being Madame Solo suited her better than being a widow, though her intimacy with Gabrielle was somewhat of a worry to her.

However, the only thing that society saw to fault in her cousin was the embarrassingly fond way she and her husband were said to exchange letters--including occasional billet-doux at parties.

_Darling G--, you are radiant tonight. I await you on the veranda._

_Beloved E--, scandalous man. I try to keep countenance, but you are too dashing. If I go, I will never escape blushes._

_Angel Gabrielle--you were right to forbear last night. We should have covered ourselves in shame. Especially the few friends who know you shall soon be in confinement are already raising their eyebrows. We must be more discreet--in public._

_I know we are going to argue today about whether you can go for a ride in the park--I would like to point to your letter of last spring where you promised me to take care once you were in an interesting situation. I do not plan to be a tyrant, and it is only horseback riding I hope you will retire from for a little while._

_As an olive branch, I would like for you to know I am happy to continue to practice the waltz and being excessively attentive. This is really an equal pleasure for me, so if you have any other commissions you wish to add to this list, I am all agog._

_You look adorable in that silly bedcap, by the way. I have no discernible preference between it and that incredible bonnet you had for the party last night. Ah, you wake--I will call for your coffee instead of writing more._

_\--E_

_Miracle Elias,_

_How sweetly you maneuver me! How can I argue with a carriage ride side by side instead of horseback alone? You will not expect me not to walk, however. Don't think I missed the speculative anxiety in your eyes when I jumped down from the carriage today._

_It is a sad wickedness in me, but I find that look adorable._

_If your children are anything like you it shall be very difficult for me to not spoil them. I feel if they are anything like me, you shall have the same problem. We will need to come up with a strategy to not absolutely ruin them._

_Oh, I see you coming up to the house with flowers. I will pretend to be surprised if they are for me, I promise._

_\--G_


End file.
